


Spar Session

by theoncomingwolf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Sparring, Training, main characters: 1. allura 2. keith probs 3. shiro but all around fun paladin fight time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:31:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoncomingwolf/pseuds/theoncomingwolf
Summary: In which Allura takes the training bot's place as sparring opponent for the day.Set after s2, all paladins present.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always hoping for more fics with Allura front and center, or at least noticeably present, so I thought I should write one.  
> This is mostly action, so I may write another more character based one.

“We can handle level 6,” Keith repeats, groaning in annoyance at the air of hesitance among the paladins.

“Maybe,” Hunk says, “but if we get called to fight right after this thing beats us up, that would kind of suck... besides, since Coran is making us practice in our helmets, and it’s kind of hard to see; I haven’t gotten used to this yet.”

He glances toward Coran in the booth, who contributes no opinion, listening for a verdict so he can start the program.

“I couldn’t beat Zarkon in my _lion,”_ Keith insists, “we need all the practice we can get; no more wasting time.”

“If you couldn’t beat him in red, we should _never_ try to fight him hand to hand,” Pidge counters.

Shiro hums during the ensuing pause, giving him a moment to think without interruption.

“We were on 4,” he says after a moment, “but I think it’s time to move up to 5. We can wait until we’ve beaten that a few times to try 6; there’s no shame in working our way up.”

Keith crosses his arms, but recognizing that Shiro has made a decision that the rest of the paladins seem to agree with, doesn’t counter.

Coran, eager to begin before peace has a chance to fall away once more, sets the droid up for level 5.

Keith, eager to prove that they can handle it, charges in first, The first blow glances off the robot’s side and the second hits harmlessly against its staff, giving it enough time to turn away from Lance’s shot. The beam zips uselessly past Keith’s head.

“Hey, watch where you’re shooting!”

“I wasn’t gonna hit you,” Lance throws back, “long as you didn’t move, anyway...”

Pidge speeds around Keith, ducking low to land a jab with her bayard. She’s just upon the droid when it takes its opportunity, and she finds herself colliding with a suddenly displaced Keith instead.

They’re spared further pain by Hunk, too close quarters to shoot, but well positioned to jump forward and use the side of his gun as a battering ram to knock the droid back. Lance’s next shot pings nicely into the robot’s head, throwing it off balance. It darts to the side to avoid the following shot, leaving room for Shiro to jump in on the offensive.

His first hit slices the droid’s side, which is wide open while it prepares a strike of its own. It swings its weapon before he has a chance to aim for its chest, and Shiro blocks just in time, grunting as the staff collides painfully with his arms.

He moves for another hit; the droid, anticipating it this time, holds its staff out to block, squaring its feet in a stable position.

Shiro swings forward, ready to feign a hit towards its staff and duck under for a more substantial blow. Instead, he flinches backward at the sight of something coming from its neck, blocking while he tries to process this new development.

The droid keels over at his feet, joints lighting up green to signify a win.

Allura strides into the room, stepping over the droid to pull her staff, thrown like a javelin, out of its neck.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she greets, “but I think I should be practicing too, if you’ll indulge me.”

“Sure!” Hunk chirps, “I bet we can put the droid even higher if you’re practicing with us! What do you think, 6? Ooh, a 7?”

Allura shakes her head, looking around at the paladins. Keith and Pidge have gotten to their feet since their collision, and look ready to go again. Lance has rightly learned to stay out of the droid’s path and shoot from a distance. Hunk has pretty good defensive strikes, and is effective at a distance and close up. Shiro’s arm glows with Galra tech that she knows can’t be deflected so easily as a sword.

She’ll have to be careful.

“I think you misunderstand, Hunk,” Allura clarifies, “you’re all going to be fighting me.”

The look on their faces makes her reconsider that last thought; she won’t have to be careful if they refuse to actually hit her.

“Cool.”

The rest of them think they’re being respectful by not wanting to fight her, but the only one that doesn’t doubt that she know’s what she’s doing is Keith. That’s more like the respect she wants.

“Sounds like a great idea Princess!” Coran says, evidently also supportive of the idea, “I’ll call stop if I think either side is going to get too hurt.”

She’s watched the paladins train many times, and they’ve never seen her fight, giving her a strategic advantage; that, along with her strength and years of training, means Allura’s pretty sure she can handle her paladins just fine.

She squares up close to Keith, giving him a chance to come for her first, as she knows he will. Her back is to Shiro and Hunk, but she’s not too worried about them trying to surprise her so early into it. Allura notes that Pidge’s eyes have lit up as well; she may have to watch out for both of them in the first minute.

“Go!”

Keith charges first, side stepping as he gets close to try to throw her off. She feigns a hit before ignoring him and going for Pidge. She knows Pidge will have a clever trick up her sleeve in a moment; if she wants to win, she has to take her down before she can think of a plan. Next, Lance, who can hit long distance, then Hunk, who is less likely to shoot at her, but still a long range risk, all the while avoiding Keith and Shiro. This fight is proving good practice already, Allura decides. Now to see if the paladins can work together enough to pick up on her strategy.

Upon Pidge, Allura catches some sympathy that she’d been judging the paladins for just a minute before, and opts not to throw her at Lance. It’s quite a distance, and she doesn’t want to injure any of them.

Instead, she counters the jab Pidge aims for her flank, knocking her arm to the side and slamming her hard into the ground, careful not to land her on her head too directly. The helmet catches most of the brunt there, but as planned, the bayard falls out of Pidge’s grip.

Allura kicks it aside, not able to pick it up, as Keith comes up faster than she had expected.

The first blow lands hard against her staff, which she barely brings up in time.

The next doesn’t have the energy to strike, as a hard kick to Keith’s chest knocks the air out of his lungs and sends him crashing to the floor.

Allura runs for Hunk next, barreling into his legs and bringing her staff up underneath his chest as he falls to flip him over her. She drops her staff, reaching two hands up under the armor on his legs.

“Watch out Lance!”

Allura hefts Hunk up, spinning once around to gain enough momentum to toss him as far as she wants him to go.

She lets go early at the yelled warning, sending him towards Shiro instead, frustrated in the moment, but glad overall that Shiro saw through her idea.

Shiro attempts a jump to miss him, but catches his foot on Hunk’s shoulder, landing him sprawled on top of Hunk by the time they both hit the ground. He recovers quickly from the cushioned fall, and makes a dive for Allura’s fallen staff.

Planting a foot on top of it, Allura readies herself to deflect his inevitable next hit.

His hand’s not glowing.

She deflates at the sight, realizing that this advancement doesn’t mean he’s taking this completely seriously, even now.

Her hesitation allows him to get close enough to jab her in the shoulder. Allura merely deflects the blow, punching him hard in the ribs in response, under where his armor stops. It’s nowhere near her full strength, as she doesn’t really want to _injure_ him, but she doesn’t mind if he hurts a bit. It’ll teach him a good lesson; if he didn’t want to engage fully, he should have stayed back.

Shiro grunts, clutching his side, and tries to hit her in response, hand still plain metal. She punches him again, slamming her fist hard into his head. It stings her hand a little- the paladin armor is built strong- but she thinks he gets the idea. Shiro’s head snaps back, taking his body with it as he’s thrown off balance; Allura stops his fall by grabbing his collar, throwing him towards Pidge, as she did on the Galra ship..

Keith, still fighting with his all, aims his sword at her side, in a way that could kill her if she let it. They both know she won’t. Allura drops to the ground, kicking at his legs, but he’s learned his lesson, and jumps out of the way in time, bringing his sword back down at her. She’s partially laying on her staff, and has no time to pick it up, so she opts to take the hit on her wrists. It glances off the thick metal bracelets, but still grazes her arm just deep enough to draw blood.

Keith shouldn’t have this much of an advantage; she let Shiro distract her.

Allura rolls off her staff, picking it up and spinning onto her feet. She blocks one hit from Keith, and lands her own on his side, throwing him off balance. Keith blocks her next hit; before she can prepare another, something stings her shoulder.

Allura glances up to see Lance looking apologetically over his weapon. She’d been purposely keeping her body behind Keith’s, in the way of their “sharpshooter”, but it looks like he’s gotten patient enough to ensure a good hit.

Allura’s proud.

She throws her staff like a javelin once more.

Lance, having seen what it did to the robot, shrieks as he drops out of the way; it glances off the wall behind him with a spark, wobbling around and smacking him in the head anyway. It distracts Keith enough for her to get close, so he can’t use his bayard; she grabs his wrist, twisting it hard enough to hurt, but not to break, angling his body as she turns so he’s between her and the other paladins once more.

Lance is sitting, holding the back of his head and seemingly grateful for his helmet; Hunk is on his feet; Shiro looks ready to take the offense once she’s done wrassling with Keith... Pidge is gone.

Allura twists harder on Keith’s arm, who jumps off his feet so it doesn’t snap and lands unharmed on the ground; she kicks his fallen bayard across the room before spinning around to grab Pidge, who has gone for the prone body of the droid to try and start it up again.

Allura opts to ignore that problem for now, running towards them to to snap the staff from the droid’s still calibrating fingers. She hits Pidge in the chest with the butt of it once for good measure, before charging at Shiro and Hunk.

Shiro looks startled, blocking and preparing to dodge, but his hand stays unlit still.

She hits him with the staff. His knees wobble, but he doesn’t fall. He aims a punch at her head, and she takes the opportunity to slam the long part of the staff into his collarbone. Allura spins him around, putting him in a headlock.

He grabs for the staff, but his attempts to pry it from her strong grip are ineffective. She pulls him back towards the wall, putting Hunk in front of her as well, so she can survey all of them at once.

New plan, toss them all somewhere and take the droid’s head off.

“Still a level 5, Coran?” She calls.

“No telling,” he answers, “that would be cheating.”

The staff falls apart in her hands.

Allura shoves Shiro away from her, noting that he’s finally taken the safety off his arm. He and Hunk move away from the droid, seemingly worried that it’s going to attack them too, but Allura is pretty sure that Pidge knows what she’s doing. The training bot is only coming for her.

She stabs out at its head with her right hand, disappointed to find that Shiro cut her staff in a way that made the edges still fairly dull. The droid has no weapon, but the size is still a bit of a disadvantage. Allura grows taller, on equal terms with it now, and grabs it in a hug, one arm holding its collar, and leverages one half of her staff under its head.

It headbutts her pretty hard.

Her head snaps back into the wall behind her, adding another blow to the roster, and its knee comes up quickly into her gut. A quick flex of her abs means the hit still hurts, but at least she can breathe.

Allura throws herself to the side, towards Shiro, and swings hard at him with her remaining half of the staff. He blocks; she angles the hit so it catches over his purple hand, slicing the metal clean through, and leaving a much sharper edge. She grabs his helmet with her free hand, slamming his head into the wall, and goes for the droid once more. He bounces off, shaken but not hurt.

Allura waits for the droid to reach up at her, still tall, and watches until the plates in its armor have separated enough. She drives the metal into its body, causing it to light up green in indication of a killing blow.

“Success!” Coran calls, seemingly forgetting that the fight isn’t only between her and the droid.

Keith doesn’t forget. He doesn’t retrieve his bayard, which is somewhat near her, drawing his galra blade instead. She starts at the sight of it.

Keith notices, drawing back before striking, both of them aware of her second of fear at that specific blade. She aims a punch at his head, which has long been devoid of a helmet, despite Coran’s earlier insistence that they try a few fights with them on. Keith dodges, stabbing at her leg, despite her side also being open. She spins with the hit, dodging in the same direction he’s aiming for, so he overextends himself, then slaps him hard on the back so he overbalances, arm stretched too far out to run the risk of him landing on his knife.

“All right,” Coran calls out, “good practice- time for a snack.”

“Finally,” Lance sighs, rising to grab them a few space capris.

“We’re not done,” Keith protests, gratefully taking the hand Allura offers him to stand; he doesn’t need it, but it assures him they’re cool after her involuntary flinch.

“I think we got a good amount of practice in,” Coran says, “Nice work on that 6.7, Princess.”

Allura shoots a look to Shiro as he takes his helmet off.

“Decimals are an option?” Hunk asks.

“Well, Pidge’s tinkering threw it a bit,” Coran says, “I’ll have to fix that.”

“Hey, 6.7?” Keith says, “Nice; do you want to fight a 7 with me some time? Oh, or an 8?”

“I’d like that,” Allura says, “you fought well. Good work Pidge, for recognizing that I was physically stronger than you and sending a harder hitting opponent, and Lance- nice shot. You’re turning out to be our sharpshooter after all.”

Keith nods, excited to have a willing sparring partner. Pidge and Lance beam at her.

Hunk notes the lack of praise in his direction, but he doesn’t seem bothered about it; it wasn’t that he didn’t try, just that Allura decided he was one to be taken out quickly; if anything, he’s flattered about that.

Shiro ducks his head, also noting his lack of mention, despite trading blows with her.

“Your blood looks awesome,” Pidge says, noting the fuchsia stain on Allura’s sleeve, “is Coran’s blood the same? Ooh, or maybe blue?”

“Why would my blood be blue?” Coran questions, indignant.

Pidge points up to her own eyes, gesturing to the same place that Coran and Allura had markings- Allura’s pink, Coran’s blue.

Shiro waits until the paladins have headed off for snacks and Coran has come down from the box to drag the droid off for examination.

“Have I done something to bother you, Princess?”

Allura hums, taking her hair out of its bun and slowly fluffing it back out. Her head, already hurt by the droid’s headbutt, throbs a little more as her hair relaxes and pulls on her scalp.

She turns to share her opinions, pausing at the sight of his eyes; they seem so sincere.

“No Shiro,” she says, her annoyance at his refusal to fight her seriously ebbing somewhat as she considers his reasons for freezing up during past battles, “although, if... you ever don’t want to fight, you can still contribute. Why don’t you help your other paladins next time.”

Shiro nods, angling the very tops of his his shoulders down slightly with his head, so it almost resembles a bow.

“Yes ma’am, I’ll keep that in mind,” Shiro says, sincerely, then adds, “I’m glad Coran decided we should learn to fight in our helmets. It was a very good test for the durability and shock absorbance.”

“We like our paladins safe,” Allura says, knowing she would have never hit him so hard had he not been wearing it; she supposes she was holding back too.

“I might join you and Keith in your next droid fight, if you don’t mind,” Shiro says, “I can work on my team defensive maneuvers and teach them to the other paladins. Might be fun to try a match where I don’t go offensive at all.”

Allura smiles; Shiro, eager to defend and teach his other paladins, hesitant to hit a teammate, exists in sharp contrast to the last black paladin and leader of Voltron.

“I think that’s a great idea Shiro,” she says, “let’s join the others, shall we?”

**Author's Note:**

> I became convinced while writing this that Keith and Allura could be good friends while I was writing this. Imagine them sparring together for fun; adorable. Shiro and Allura have their own thing going too, which I really like. I hope more fics are written that explore her relationships with the paladins.
> 
> Anyway, if you have a moment, a review really means a lot. Thanks for reading.


End file.
